Best marketing tools and digital resources for independent musicians as recommended by Team Symphonic

The pros at Symphonic have compiled a list of useful digital tools and partners that all musicians should strongly consider using.

by Randi Zimmerman of Symphonic Blog

Working in this business, we’ve seen tons of online features and services come and go. Some of which, however, we just can’t seem to get enough of here at Symphonic. Whether they improve the lives of artists, labels, or even our own, these are some of the coolest and most useful online tools every music industry human should utilize.

The Symphonic Team’s Favorite Digital Partners & Tools

Spotify Canvas

If you’re a frequent Spotify user, you’ve probably noticed some of your favorite artist’s album covers come to life while you’re listening. These animated release covers range from trippy artwork to looping music videos and offer a whole new way for artists to express themselves while simultaneously increasing streams, and even saves. Spotify Canvas is the future of album artwork, reimagined for the digital world. Even better news, making your own is easy.

Did you know all clients distributed by Symphonic have access to Spotify Canvas? Check out, “How To Use Spotify Canvas” to learn how.

RISE.la

Rise is an advertising platform designed to be accessible to any serious artist or music company that wants to get better results for their marketing spend. Their goal is to provide artists, labels, and publishers the tools to make sure every dollar produces measurable results. Click here to learn more about how it works.

Groover

On Groover, music curators and professionals listen to your track, respond with feedback, and share the tracks they’re vibing with. If one of their 3,000+ curators/pros likes your track, they’ll share their contact information with you so you can keep in touch. With Groover, you no longer need to spend hours looking for contacts, sending emails, and managing follow-ups. You can reach industry professionals in a few clicks. Just send your music, get listened to, and receive guaranteed feedback within a week.

Feature.fm

With more music being released than ever before, Feature.fm helps you market your music, tours, and content with a marketing suite built specifically for music. With it, you can engage your fans in seconds with innovative tools like:

• Artist Bio Links
• Pre-Release Links
• Release Links
• Contest & Unlock Pages
• Tour and Event Links
• Podcast Links
• Short Links

and more… Not to mention Symphonic has partnered with Feature.fm to bring you a fully fledged music marketing suite right in the SymphonicMS. This integration gives our clients features like in-depth analytics, fan email capture, fan base management, fan notifications, and email syncing to help you engage and grow your fan base with ease.

Playlist Push

Over 20,000 independent and major label artists use Playlist Push to get their music on tons of Spotify playlists. With it, you can pitch your song to many independent music curators that manage organic playlists on Spotify. We’ve also partnered up with them to give you 15% off your first campaign with them, which you can try out right here.

SoundCloud Promote

Promote is a self-serve tool on SoundCloud that lets you choose targeting options (like age, gender, location, device or genre) to get your music in front of the audience you want on their Stream and mobile homepage. Targeting a release can benefit you in many ways. For example, if you’d like to build the hype for your new song in an upcoming city on your tour route before the day comes.

To do this, all you have to do is:

• Name your promotion
• Select one of your public, monetizing tracks
• Decide if you want to use Simple or Advanced targeting
• Pick a budget for how much you’d like to spend
• Select your start and end date for the promotion
• Choose the audience you want to reach
• Check availability and add to your cart.

Easy as that.

SubmitHub

Built with musicians and curators in mind, SubmitHub is a great way of getting quick feedback on your tracks. What it does it let you submit your music to curators using either standard or premium “credits.” If you use premium credits, you can expect a decision within 48 hours. For a curator to earn your credits, they will need to listen to at least 20 seconds of your song, and if they don’t like it they’ll need to explain why. Then, if a curator decides that they like your song, they’ll let you know when and how they plan to share it. You’ll also be able to chat with them about the release, and share any information you think they might need for their coverage.

Since we’ve launched Symphonic Starter (the plan that gives you unlimited releases and 100% of your royalties for only $19.99 a year), this is a perfect addition for those beginner artists looking to get their work out to curators.

99designs

99designs is a freelance designer marketplace. If you need album artwork, website landing pages, logos, brand guidelines, and social media guidelines, they have killer options for freelancers. No matter what you need, this site can connect you with a creative expert to make whatever you need look and feel as professional and badass as possible.

YouTube Shorts

It’s no secret short-form video content has taken over the internet. With it, you can watch more of what you love, faster than ever. On YouTube, leveraging their short-form content features, like YouTube Shorts and Clips, is a great strategy for growing your overall page. If you’ve been working on growing your YouTube channel but neglecting these tools, you’re missing out on some easy traffic.

With billions of views a day, YouTube Shorts is a great place for artists (or labels) to grow their audience. With up to 60 seconds of creative freedom, you can catch your fans attention with behind-the-scenes looks, reactions, song snippets or whatever else you want to share. Because Shorts are prominently featured on the YouTube homepage and in the Shorts tab, this increased visibility can help attract new viewers to your main content, exposing them to your channel and potentially converting them into subscribers.

Spotify Clips

We’ve all seen the success of short form content nowadays, and Clips brings that success to Spotify for artists like you to take advantage of. Clips are short, under 30-second vertical videos to help you focus on the music and keep your content all in one place on Spotify. With it, you can hype up an upcoming release, promote an album or single, share stories about your music and influence fans to go deeper into what you have to offer.

Clips are uploaded directly to through Spotify for Artists and are attached to your artist profile. You can even tag Clips to your new track or album so fans can check it out right there.

In Conclusion…

Of course, there are many other companies out there who have incredible services that help artists like you every day. If I asked every single person at Symphonic for their favorites, the list would go on indefinitely. However, I hope one of these piques your interest and ends up helping you reach one of your many goals as an artist! You aren’t in this thing alone, and services and tools like these can take your career to new heights… but only if you give them a chance to.

Good luck!